Muni agent allegedly punches teen girl

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A Muni station agent likely faces assault charges after witnesses say he threw a punch at a teenage girl over a fare dispute.

At around 4:10 p.m. Thursday, the juvenile girl and her sister, a young adult, approached the station agent in the Embarcadero Muni station and asked for a reduced rate, San Francisco police Sgt. Lyn Tomioka said.

The girl didn’t have identification to support her age claim, and she and the ticket agent got in an argument about it. Witnesses reported that the agent walked into his booth and the girl followed him, telling him to call the police. The discussion became more heated, and then the agent hit the girl in the mouth, witnesses told the police.

At some point, police say one or both of the girls threw a soda can at the ticket agent, but it’s unknown whether contact was made.

Eventually, the police arrived and detained everyone. The juvenile was sent to the hospital for the injury to her mouth; the ticket agent claimed to be injured, too, and was sent to another hospital. Tomioka said the inspector, who she could not yet identify, was likely to face an assault charge over the incident.

Police and Muni inspectors will be examining video taken by station cameras today to gather more information about the event, Tomioka said.

Muni spokesman Judson True said the agency will be investigating the incident.

“We are deeply troubled by this altercation,” he said in a written statement. “We expect our employees to avoid verbal and physical altercations with our customers as much as possible, and we take seriously our responsibility to respond appropriately to this afternoon’s incident.”